Monday, June 25, 2012

Omar Khadr and the Gitmo Cons

It's a Canadian horror story. A young boy is taken from his Toronto home by his Jihadi father, to a place he never should have been.

He is riddled with shrapnel, shot twice in the back. The bullets exploding out of his chest and exposing his beating heart.

He is taken to the ghastly gulag called Guantanamo, tortured by the Americans and betrayed by his own government. Even though he was a child soldier.

And now when he is so close to coming home at last, who does he find blocking his return? The monstrous Con Vic Toews. The horror, the horror...

The bullshit:

"The facts have not changed. Omar Ahmed Khadr is a Canadian citizen that has pled guilty to the murder of an American army medic," Toews' press secretary, Julie Carmichael, said Thursday.

"The U.S. no longer wants him and has asked us to take him. A decision must be made on his application in accordance with Canadian law."

For the record, the only reason Khadr pleaded guilty was because he was facing a kangaroo court that wanted to sentence him to forty years behind bars. He couldn't have killed the American soldier because he was riddled with shrapnel at the time, and blind in both eyes. The American soldier belonged to a Special Forces unit that has no dedicated medics. Since when is killing another soldier in a firefight called "murder"? And since when is a deal not a deal?

Oh boy. The moral depravity of the Cons.

"He's a good person with a good heart and he wants to get an education and make a positive difference on society," Jackson said of Khadr.

"Could he fool me and could he fool hundreds of guards over a 10-year period? I guess it's possible but at the end of the day, we rely on what we see and how we interact with Omar . . . He's a good kid and he deserves a chance at life."

Who would keep a good Canadian kid in jail, after he has suffered so much...

Just to appease their rabid bloodthirsty base.

And who have now sunk so low they are the ones keeping the Guantanamo gulag open.

To hear Khadr’s legal team tell it, this “stonewalling” is undermining American prosecutors’ efforts to cut deals with other alleged terrorists, to secure convictions and ultimately to empty Gitmo. Other prisoners look at Khadr’s go-nowhere case and wonder why they should play ball.

Can you believe that ? Just call them the Gitmo Cons, the Torture Boys, or the scum of the earth.

From the start the Harper government has wilfully shirked its duty to stand up for a Canadian citizen who the Supreme Court of Canada and the United Nations both say was mistreated. Ottawa never objected to the abuse, criticized the prosecution or sought leniency. As Canada’s allies lobbied to free their nationals from Gitmo, the Harper government insisted, perversely and against all evidence, that “justice” was taking its course.

Now, in one last show of obduracy, Toews is letting a U.S.-approved transfer bid gather dust. Enough. Harper should honour the Gitmo deal and make the move. Now.